NEW YORK (AP) ― The New York Film Critics Circle named “American Hustle” the best film of 2013, giving David O. Russell’s fictionalized Abscam tale an early jolt in Hollywood’s awards season.

The film was also awarded best supporting actress for Jennifer Lawrence and best screenplay for the script by Russell and Eric Singer. The film, which doesn’t open in theaters until Dec. 13, is about a collection of FBI agents and con men that brought down high-profile politicians in and around New Jersey in the late 1970s.

Best actor went to Robert Redford for his near-wordless performance in the shipwreck drama “All Is Lost.” Cate Blanchett won best actress for her leading role as a bitter, fallen socialite in Woody Allen’s “Blue Jasmine.”

“12 Years of Slave” filmmaker Steve McQueen took best director for his adaptation of Solomon Northup’s memoir about being abducted and sold into slavery in 19th-century Louisiana.

The critics group doesn’t frequently predict Academy Awards winners. Last year, it chose Kathryn Bigelow’s Osama bin Laden hunt docudrama “Zero Dark Thirty” as best picture, though the group was in line with Oscar voters in 2011 with “The Artist.”

Many prognosticators consider the front-runners this year to be “12 Years a Slave” and the space adventure “Gravity,” but early awards are finding anything but consensus.